Arctic Yearbook 2014 - Page 308

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economic growth (Putnam 1993; Fukuyama 2002). Thus, both natural and social capital are tightly
linked to economic and human dimensions of development and have been developed to evoke
attention and advance discussions on the role of alternative forms of capital to sustainable
development. This paper introduces the concept of socio-natural capital to identify hindering and
facilitating factors for sustainable land use in the Fennoscandia. Sustainable land use can be defined
as practices that maintain and provide opportunities for land use for current and future economic
and social benefits, while not deteriorating the ecological state of the used areas. There may be also
contradictions between the ecological, economic and social dimensions of sustainability. Here the
discussions on socio-natural capital are placed within the context of social-ecological systems (SES).
SES literature highlights that the sustainability of resource use needs to take into account coupled
social-ecological systems and their interrelations (e.g. Folke et al. 2005). SES examinations have been
previously connected to natural capital (e.g. Biggs et al. 2012) and to social capital (e.g. Olsson et al.
2004).
Natural capital is seen as a stock of properties of ecosystem structures and processes, which provide
so called ‘ecosystem services’ to people (e.g. Daily 1997). Following the Common International
Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES 2013), there are three types of services: 1) provisioning
(products obtained from ecosystems e.g. food, wood, water), 2) regulating and maintenance
(moderate or control of environmental conditions e.g. flood control; water purification by aquifers,
carbon sequestration by forests, etc.), 3) cultural (non-material benefits obtained from ecosystems
e.g. recreation, education, aesthetics). Today, supporting services (MA 2005) or natural capital
(Costanza et al. 1997) are mostly assigned to ecosystem functions as parameters of the ecological
functioning grounding the other types of ecosystem services. Ecosystem services can be understood
as a flow from natural capital to ecosystem services, which further provide benefits and values for
people (Haines-Young & Potschin 2010). However, the accounts on provisioning of ecosystem
services need to take into consideration the inseparable social and ecological dimensions affecting
ecosystem services, and further on human benefits and well-being (Heikkinen et al. 2012;
Spangenberg et al. 2014). The ecosystem services, values and benefits provided by natural capital are
socially negotiated, and also contested due to divergent social conceptualisations of what constitutes
for example environmentally and socially sustainable land use. In this article we apply this idea, and
do not focus on natural capital as such, but on contested social definitions on the sustainable use of
that capital. Therefore, the notion of socio-natural capital seems to hold promise for integrating
more clearly the social dimension inevitably linked to the concept of natural capital, and expanding it
though the notions of trust, networks, communication, power, norms and governance practices.
The concept of human capital refers to the stock of competencies, knowledge and social attributes
that increase an ability to produce economic value (Simkovic 2013). Bourdieu (1986) has introduced
sub-dimensions for human capital, those being social, cultural and symbolic capital. Here we apply
the concept of social capital to build up our notion of socio-natural capital. In recent discussions on
development, the concept of social capital has been described as the glue that holds societies
together (Serageldin & Grootaert 1999). The most important aspects of social capital are trust,
norms, reciprocity, leadership and networks (Putnam 1993). Furthermore, communication has been
Socio-Natural Capital for Sustainable Land Use in the Fennoscandia